Cheap Gas

Bob Englehart

Oil prices have taken a dizzying roller coaster ride for the past forty years and people have responded only too well. That’s the funny thing about life on this planet. When we solve one problem, it creates two more. For instance, conservation and technology are working their magic, creating alternative ways of fueling our lifestyle and that’s making an impact. Cars get better mileage across the industry so we’re buying less gas and sending fewer dollars to the rich Arabs in the Mideast and Vladimir Putin in Russia. Plus, we’re finding ways to squeeze that last greasy dollop of crude from our own land. But the price of crude is falling so low that’s it’s beginning to make exploring for new sources prohibitively expensive for producers. It’s conceivable that the Keystone Pipeline could be postponed because of the economics of extracting tar from the sands of Canada. That’s another funny thing about life on this planet. What environmentalists, Indians, naturalists and politicians might not be able to stop, the almighty buck will.